In their crackdown on the rallies that have erupted across Iran since September, security personnel have systematically targeted protesters’ eyes, a human rights group claimed on Friday. ‘Iranian forces targeting eyes of protesters’, says human rights group
Iran Human Rights, a Norwegian organisation, reported that preliminary data suggested that young women were overrepresented among those who had suffered such wounds.
An important police officer was questioned earlier this week by a Tehran publication about whether security forces had been focusing on the eyes and other vulnerable places. He insisted to act properly.
IHR said protesters had been shot in the head and the face, leading “to many, including a significant number of young women, being blinded.”
It said this “inhumane and unlawful act” had been “carried out systematically to crush protests.”
IHR reported that it had found 22 cases of people who had suffered one-eye blindness as a result of gunfire from security forces, nine of whom were women.
The youngest victim, 6-year-old Isfahan resident Bonita Kiani Falavarjani, was standing on her grandfather’s balcony when she was shot, leaving her blind in one eye, according to the report.
During a protest in the city of Kermanshah in December, Kosar Khoshnoudikia, a member of Iran’s national archery squad, was blinded in one eye.
“We don’t have enough data yet, but I have the impression that young girls are over-represented among those whose eyes are targeted,” said IHR director Mahmood Amiry Moghaddam.
‘Iranian forces targeting eyes of protesters’, says human rights group whereas the commander of the special police, Hassan Karami, told the Hamshahri newspaper that “not harming the protesting population” was a priority for the police forces.
“I have so much faith in the ability of the special police units that I have said many times that I will offer a reward to anyone who can prove that someone was killed as a result of a mistake by our staff,” he said.
IHR reports that since the crackdown on the protests that broke out in September after the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who had been detained for allegedly breaking the country’s dress code for women, at least 488 individuals have been killed by security forces.
